Ashes in the Wind
by NerdieGirl26
Summary: She was a normal girl with nothing going for her and Doctor Who was just a lame TV show to her, until she found herself living in it. Not who she thinks she is, Delphine must struggle to trust a man she hardly knows to help her figure out who she really is and why she's there. But when she discovers who she actually is, can the Doctor help her learn to accept it? 10/OC right now.
1. 1: Another One Bites the Dust

So this is me, writing my first Doctor Who fanfiction! Doctor Who is my favorite show of all time (or at least, it's right up there with Game of Thrones) and I'm super excited to write a fic for it. This is one of those fans in the DW universe kind of fics (I have no idea what you call those), because I've always wanted to write one, so I hope you like it. It has its own quirks and uniqueness, obviously. It's starting off with season 2 of the New Series and will follow the show. I want it to be a more realistic one where things aren't all happy and smiley and the fan is so excited to be in the show and everything, but without making it too dark of a story. Thanks to ScalePhoenix14825 for all of her amazing help and being awesome and without her this story wouldn't be possible. I'm gonna get started now so don't forget to review! If you like it, review! If you don't like it, still review, and tell me what you don't like! This is my first real Doctor Who fic and, while the Doctor isn't really in this chapter too much, I will gladly take advice and criticism on how I'm writing the Doctor, because I want to write him as best as I can and I want to make the story enjoyable for you guys, so let me know what you like and what you don't like and all that jazz. Review!

**Disclaimer**: It would be totally awesome if I owned Doctor Who, because then I could have had access to David Tennant all the time when he was the Doctor, but sadly I don't. I only own Delphine and any other original characters, and any original aspects to this story.

Chapter 1

Another One Bites the Dust

~1st Person/Delphine~

"Not today, Sephiroth!" I snarled with glee at my laptop screen as I continued to deliver a butt whooping to the virtual enemy. I was sitting at the desk in the room I was sharing with my two sisters, in the foster home we all lived in for the time being. I had finished my chores for the day already so I was using my free time to play some Kingdom Hearts on the Play Station 2 emulator I'd downloaded onto my laptop. I had leveled myself up all the way to level 99 just so I could beat Sephiroth, the extra boss in the game, and no way was I about to let him kill me. Not again, anyway. "I will win! I will always win!"

"Winnie?"

I paused my game as I looked at the bedroom doorway and smiled. Lucy, my younger sister, stood in the doorway, holding her stuff rabbit and looking at me curiously. I set my controller down and held my arms open for her. "Hey, Lu. Everything alright?"

She trotted over to me on her little legs and climbed up onto my lap, wrapping one arm around the top of my shoulders as her other arm held tight to her rabbit, as if holding on to it was a matter of life and death. Who knows, maybe it was for her? She never went anywhere without the thing. Unsanitary as it may be, I don't think the stuffed animal had ever been washed. "Are you losing?"

I instantly snorted into the top of her head, causing her to laugh. "Losing? Me? Who do you think I am?"

"You're Winnie," she said with a smile, using the hand of the arm around my shoulders to poke me in the cheek. I chomped my teeth together, making like I was going to bite her finger. "And you lost yesterday!"

"I lost on purpose!" That was a terrible lie, and I could tell she didn't believe me one bit. For being only seven years old, she was pretty smart.

"No, you didn't, Winnie!"

I know what you're thinking and, no, Winnie is not my real name. Winnie is just the name that Lucy calls me. My real name is Delphine Winters, after the names of the streets of the corner I was found near as an infant, abandoned by my parents on the steps of a church. But I had met Lucy when she was only two years old, and was hardly able to talk. Pronouncing Delphine was too hard for her lack of speech, so she had taken to calling me Winnie, after my last name. Was it my favorite name in the whole world? No, not really, but it had stuck even after Lucy could pronounce my name. I had asked her once if she would consider calling me something else but the distraught look she gave me with her wide blue eyes, as if by rejecting her nickname for me I was also rejecting her, was too much for even me to handle and I caved almost as soon as I had finished asking.

"You're too smart for your own good, kid." She grinned at me as I praised her, and I couldn't resist hugging her tiny frame. I would kill for this kid; she was half of my whole world. After a moment, I pulled back and looked at her. "So, what do you need, Lu?"

"Will you play a game with me?"

I ruffled her hair with one hand as I lifted her off my lap with the other and placed her back on the floor. "Not right now, kiddo. I need to go check on Callie and see how she's doing with her chores."

Lucy's face fell and she looked like she was going to ask again, but it seemed like the understood the importance of what I was going to do and nodded. "Okay, Winnie. Later?"

"Later, definitely." With our agreement to play later, Lucy scurried out of our room, probably to go find one of the other foster kids her age to play with. We lived in a group home, so there were plenty of foster kids, her age and mine. "Be back in twenty, Sephiroth." I gave the white-haired bastard on the screen one last glare before closing the lid on my laptop and standing up from the chair. I had to go check on Callie.

No sooner had I taken a step towards the bedroom door that I heard a crash from downstairs and I cringed. _Please, don't be Callie_, I thought to myself, waiting to hear something.

"_Calliope Shepherd_!"

"Fuck."

Of course, it had to be Callie.

I left the room and quickly made my way downstairs to the kitchen, where I could hear yelling coming from. "I'm sorry, Maggie! I didn't mean to drop it! It just slipped out of my hands!"

"I don't want to hear any of your bullshit excuses, Calliope!" I was standing in the kitchen doorway now, watching the scene unfold. Callie was standing by the kitchen counter, with shards of what looked like a plate at her feet. Our foster "parent", Maggie, though she was anything but a parent, was in front of her, screaming in her face, while a couple of the other foster kids in the house were watching. Of course, none of them cared enough to do anything. Thankfully, Lucy wasn't there. "All you had to do was dry the dishes and put them away! Is that too much to ask of your incompetent little brain? You're about as useless as that thing you call your sister?"

And that was all I could stand to listen to. I stepped out of the doorway, with the intent to simply tell Maggie to put a cork in it and pull Callie out of the scene, but then Maggie went too far. I had only taken a few steps towards them when I saw Maggie's hand go up but, before I could do anything about it, she slapped her. Callie's head snapped to the side as her hand flew to her cheek, and she let out a yelp.

Instantly I was in front of her, defending her. "Touch her again," I said venomously, "and I will break your arm."

Maggie faltered for a second. She was intimidated by me, that much I knew. She had heard stories about me, I was sure, and she had seen the way I dealt with other foster kids. I was a force to be reckoned with and she knew it. But she couldn't risk losing face and power in front of the other foster kids, so she recovered. "No wonder you were abandoned at birth. Your parents must have known what a demon you would turn out to be. I'll be surprised if anyone ever adopts you worthless sacks of shit."

And, just like that, I let my hand clench into a fist and swung, connecting with her jaw. She went reeling backwards into the kitchen table, holding her jaw, and looked at me with a combination of fear and hatred. I made like I was going to step towards her and her hands instantly flew to her face and she screamed. I snorted. "Like I would waste another good punch on your worthless face." In the back of my mind, I knew I would pay for hitting our foster parent. We would get moved again, but getting moved was better than letting her abuse Callie.

I grabbed Callie's hand and started walking towards the front of the house. We both needed some fresh air and some time to let things calm down, and to let Callie calm down. Before we left the house, I stopped at the living room entrance, where Lucy was playing a board game with two of the younger kids in the house. "Lu," I said, kneeling down next to her. "Callie and I are gonna go for a little walk and get some fresh air."

"Can I come with you?" she asked as she rolled the dice.

While Maggie hated the two of us and most of the older kids, she had a thing for young children. She saw them as sweet and cute, but older kids were rotten nuisances and deserved what they got. In the whole six months that we had been there, she had never shown any signs of abuse towards the younger children. So I wasn't worried about leaving Lucy at the house while Callie and I went out. Besides, I figured Maggie had enough common sense to leave Lucy alone. Otherwise, she would have to face my wrath when I returned. "No, sweetie. Stay here, okay? We'll be back soon."

She pouted but nodded after a moment. "Okay, Winnie."

I kissed her forehead before standing back up. "Be back in a bit. Make sure you win for me." I turned around, laced my arm through Callie's, and the two of us left the house.

We walked in silence for a few moments, but once we were around the nearest street corner I stopped, halting her with me. "Let me see your face, Cal." I took her chin in my hand, examining the cheek. She protested but I refused to let go until I was certain that she was okay. Her cheek was red still, but it didn't seem like she would suffer any damage, other than emotional, from it. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Phi," she sighed, using the nickname she'd picked out for me when we first met. Having a name like Delphine, people were generally inclined to call me Del. I never really minded it, as long as I didn't hate the person with a burning passion. There were also those people who tended to pronounce my name with a "Fine" at the instead of a "Feen" so I found that allowing those people to call me Del just made things easier. But Callie had insisted on having something unique to call me and being called Feeny reminded me too much of Boy Meets World, so I settled on letting her call me Phi. Although, now it reminded me of a certain assisting character from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but it was too late to do anything about that now. "It's not like I haven't been slapped before."

"I know." A dark looked passed over my face as I thought about all the similar situations we had been in over the years. "That's what I hate."

She grabbed my hand and started walking once more. We received a strange look from someone passing by us on the sidewalk but she yanked me forward before I could say anything about it. "Why do we always get stuck with the horrible families, Phi? I hear stories about other kids in foster care finding great families and getting adopted and being loved, and we get terrible foster parents who only see us as a meal ticket. I mean, I know you're a terrible person and all, but I'm not!" She nudged me, to let me know she was only joking.

I chuckled a little, so she didn't think she hurt my feelings. But it was true. I wasn't a great person. I was pretty terrible. Callie and Lucy were amazing people and they deserved a family who would treat them right, but most of the time we ended up getting moved around because I screwed something up, because I couldn't reign in my temper. We couldn't find a happy home because foster parents knew about the three of us, and they didn't want the trouble we always brought with us. But, in reality, it was usually me who was the problem. Without me, Callie and Lucy might have found a home a long time ago. But they were stuck being unhappy because I was a monster.

"Hey, this terrible person has saved your ass more times than I can count. But, you know, we'll both be 18 in just over a year. And then we can leave foster care and adopt Lucy and find a happy home for the three of us."

She squeezed my hand with a smile, and it made me happy that she looked forward to the prospect of the three of us being on our own. Sometimes I worried that she would realize how awful I really was or that I was the reason she couldn't find a good home, and then she would leave me. But she and Lucy were all I had left in the world, and pretty much all I had to begin with, so the thought that she might not be there one day scared the crap out of me.

The three of us were foster kids. Callie and Lucy weren't actually my sisters, but they were the closest thing to family I had, so that's what I called them. What else can I say? I had never known my birth parents. Like I said, they had abandoned me on the steps of a church with nothing. No name, no idea of who they were… The only thing I had was the basket and the blanket I was laying in, and the necklace around my neck. It had been too large for me for a long time, but it was the only connection to my birth family that I had. And, although I partially hated them for abandoning me, I never took the necklace off because it was a reminder that I came from somewhere. It was a silver chain necklace; a hollow heart hung at the bottom with a small diamond in the center, and off the sides of the heart were wings extending up into the chain. It told me that, even though I had been abandoned with no idea of who I was, my parents had loved me to some extent, otherwise they wouldn't have given me the necklace. Callie had parents who loved her, but they were killed in a burglary gone wrong when she was still young. Lucy had only been two when her mother, a single parent, got drunk one night and crashed her car into another one, killing both people in the other car, and went to jail for drunk driving and manslaughter. I had been with Callie since we were both put into the same foster home so many years ago, when she had forced her way into my life because she saw I had no one else. And Lucy… I grew up in foster care, and I knew how terrible it could be for someone as young as her, and I refused to let her go through it alone. Thankfully, our social workers understood that and kept us together. I don't know what I would do without them. Honestly, I'd probably be more of a menace than I already was.

"New episode of Doctor Who tonight!" Callie squealed suddenly, disturbing me from my thoughts. "We have to watch it!"

I inwardly groaned, having completely forgotten it was Saturday and, therefore, the night for a new episode. "Why do _we_ have to watch it? I don't even like that show. And I have an emergency quest in Phantasy Star Online tonight that I wanted to do." Doctor Who was Callie's favorite show, a sci-fi show about an old as hell alien who travels through time and space in his giant blue police box and saves some people but doesn't save other people. That was the gist of it, to me anyway. I never had the patience for complicated things, and Doctor Who was definitely complicated. Besides how complicated it was, I tended to avoid shows with real people. I leaned more towards anime and video games because they didn't remind me of real life. But, no matter how much I really didn't like Doctor Who, I watched it because it made Callie happy. I had seen most of the episodes, though I only watched them the one time when they aired. Callie liked to rewatch episodes all the time, but I told her that once was enough for me.

"Because you love me and because I'll force you to watch it with me even if you say no."

"Yeah, yeah, sure you will." We had gained a little distance from the house by now and were approaching the crosswalk. Briefly, I glanced up at the street signs and had to laugh for a second. Delphine Drive and Winters Street; the corner where I had been found 16 years ago. The walk symbol on the street light was beginning to blink, warning that the lights were going to change in a few seconds, so I yanked Callie across the street before the light turned red. I didn't have the patience for waiting for the light to turn green again.

We had just finished crossing the street when I heard someone calling our names. "Winnie! Callie!"

_No_. We turned around to see Lucy standing across the street, waving at us. She must have followed us, even though I told her to stay at the house. "Lucy! Go back to the house, Lucy!" Callie called across the street to her.

I saw Lucy's foot starting to move, starting to step into the street, and I started to panic. "Stay over there, Lucy!" But a car honked its horn off to our side at the same moment, so she didn't hear me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a car heading towards her. The driver wasn't looking, and he didn't see Lucy starting to walk out into the road.

"Phi?" Callie saw it, too. If we didn't do anything, the car was going to hit Lucy. "Oh my God, Phi!"

_No, not Lucy_. I had to do something, so I chose the first option that popped into my head. "Lucy!" My feet moved and I found myself running across the crosswalk. I recognized myself pushing Lucy out of the way of the car, and then everything went black.

The last things I was aware of was Callie screaming my name, and a crushing pain emanating throughout my body.

And then I was falling.

~X~

~3rd Person~

"Not too shabby, if I do say so myself," the Doctor said, talking to both himself and the TARDIS, as he pulled his brown trench coat over his shoulders. Sticking his hands into the pockets, he looked at himself in the mirror. "What do you think?"

His TARDIS hummed a happy response in his head, approving of his new choice of clothing. Satisfied with the way he looked, the Doctor left the wardrobe room of the TARDIS and began making his way back to the console room. He had left Rose with Jackie and Mickey up in their flat to start their Christmas dinner while he went to get changed out of Harold's pajamas. Interestingly enough, he had found more fruit, a banana and an orange, in the pockets of Harold's robe. "Man likes his fruit." Normally, Christmas dinners weren't something he would partake in, but it seemed fitting after the day's events, and Rose seemed happy that he would join them. After all, all he wanted to do was make Rose happy.

As he walked down the hallway, he began to notice that the TARDIS seemed distressed. When he tried to ask her what was wrong, all she would tell him was to go to the console room. She wouldn't give him any other answer, so he frowned and quickened his pace.

When he made it to the console room, he stopped. The problem distressing the TARDIS was… a girl. "What?" A young girl was laying on the grating off to the side of the console, and she seemed to be unconscious. "What?" Instantly he was able to she was injured, and she was bleeding all over the grating. "What?"

He rushed to the girl's side, concerned about her injuries but wondering more about how she was able to get inside his TARDIS. Taking a look at her face, he was certain he'd never met her before. A quick question to the TARDIS confirmed that she had never seen this girl either, and that the girl had just appeared out of nowhere like this.

His first thought was to scan her, see how severe her injuries were. A quick wave of his sonic screwdriver over her told him that she didn't have any fatal wounds, but she was injured to a severe extent.

Relieved that she wasn't dead and didn't seem to be in immediate danger of dying, the Doctor leaned back and looked at her. His TARDIS was one of the safest places in the universe. The armed forces of Genghis Khan couldn't get through the doors of the TARDIS. So how did this injured, feeble girl manage to get inside? She seemed to be human, and his scan didn't detect otherwise, so it should have been impossible for her to just materialize inside the TARDIS, like the old girl was saying.

As he was pondering the impossibility of this girl behind in his TARDIS, her eyes opened. "Hello," he said softly, not wanting to scare the girl right off the bat. At least, not until he could figure out who she was.

Instead of responding to him, she screamed.

* * *

I know this chapter wasn't very action-y or anything and didn't really have the Doctor in it, but next chapter will be better! Honest! I have a Polyvore account with a collection of what Delphine will be wearing throughout the chapters so if you're interested, then check it out. The link is on my profile. Next chapter will be much more interesting so please keep reading! Hopefully the next chapter is up soon-ish, but the semester is ending next week so I'm swamped with a million things to do. But I'll be working on it! Don't forget to review!


	2. 2: Insane in the Membrane

I'm back! I started writing this the day after I posted chapter 1 and, knowing me, it's probably taken me a week to get it up. I always write these pre-chapter rambles before I write the chapter and never really go back to edit them before I post the chapter, so I don't know what day it is right now when I'll be posting this. I think I mentioned in the first chapter that my life is one big pile of nonsense right now with the end of the semester and I have a million things to do, but once the semester ends next week I'll be able to get a lot more work done on this so just bear with me for a week and a half. By next Wednesday, I should be done with all of my schoolwork so then I'll have a life again.

Anyway, I hope you liked chapter 1. I know it was mostly background stuff on Delphine, but since Delphine is an important character in this story, I thought it was important to give some background stuff on her. This chapter will be much more interesting and then I believe the next chapter will start introducing episodes! Yay! Anyway, I realize chapter 1 didn't have a lot that was probably worth reviewing on so thanks to everyone who favorite'd and followed, and I hope I get some reviews this time :D Also, this story will have a decent amount of foul language (Delphine has a potty mouth) so if you don't like curse words, just ignore them, but I thought maybe I should give you a heads up. Also, before I get underway, since I'll be starting episodes in the next couple chapters, I want to know: Do you guys prefer longer chapters, of whole episodes or even half episodes, that take longer to put out, but there's more to read? Or do you prefer shorter chapters that I can put out faster? Let me know, and I'll try to accommodate! Anyway, don't forget to review!

Chapter 2

Insane in the Membrane

~1st Person/Delphine~

_What happened?_

I couldn't see. Why couldn't I see? Had I gone blind? No. I didn't feel blind. I felt… hot. I felt like I was suffocating. But I still couldn't see… I was floating in darkness.

Floating? Yes, floating. I was floating. I was weightless but, at the same time, I was heavy, so heavy I couldn't move. My limbs felt like lead. I tried to shift my arm, but nothing happened.

What happened to me?

I remembered pain. A brief, fleeting moment of pain… and then it was gone. And as soon as it had disappeared, I was here. But where was here?

Was I dead?

"_No, not dead, little dove. Just… shifting_."

Who was that? I opened my mouth to ask, but no sound came out. Had I gone deaf as well? Wonderful. I was deaf, blind, immobile, and dead. Absolutely fantastic. Couldn't get any better than this.

Joy. I was snarky in the afterlife, too. Surprised I'm not in hell. Or was I?

"_This is not hell, Delphine, and you are none of those things. This is simply a place between places_."

Because that made complete sense, freaky bodiless voice.

"_It will. In time, everything will make sense. You must be patient._"

I had a sensation of aching inside my head. At least I was still able to feel that. This voice… It felt like it was inside and outside of my head all at the same time, clawing at my brain and my ears and my eyes. I tried to determine a gender, to have some sort of idea who was talking to me, but I couldn't… It seemed both male and female, but it wasn't multiple voices. There was only one.

What was happening to me?

"_We wish we could explain, little dove, we do. But we're sorry. It is time for you to go, to return from whence you came._"

Before I could ask what that meant, I felt it; the pain from before. It came crashing back into me, erupting through my body in blinding torrents of fire.

Fire, yes, that's what it felt like.

It felt like I was on fire.

I heard a voice, but not the same one. It was distinctly a girl, screaming. Screaming, until her throat felt raw and she couldn't breathe anymore.

I wasn't floating anymore and, as the girl's voice continued to penetrate my eardrums, I realized I knew who it was. It was me.

I was screaming, and I was in pain.

I forced my eyes open, surprised and relieved to find I wasn't blind, but everything was blurry and I couldn't tell what I was seeing. I forced myself to stop screaming, slowly, as I expelled the last bits of air in my lungs. My lungs throbbed inside of my chest. Was that from screaming?

As I tried to force myself to breath my vision began to clear, revealing a face, a man's face with brown hair, above mine. He was staring at me, with what seemed to be concern. "Hello," he said, but it felt like nails on a chalkboard inside my head, still aching from the voice from before.

_Lucy_.

Memories came rushing back into my head at a mile a minute. Images of Callie and me walking, of hearing Lucy behind us, of me running into the middle of the street…

I sat up suddenly, regrettably banging my head into the man's above me. Did I save her? "Lucy!" I was aware of an object next to me, unsure of what it was, so I grabbed it to pull myself to my feet. My body screamed in protest. What felt like a million different places on my body felt like they were ripping apart, but I had to get up. The moment I made it to my feet, the room began spinning. I felt something on my arm and looked down to find a hand, attached to the brunette man I'd hit in the head. Instantly I yanked away, looking around for a sign of Lucy but not finding one. "Lucy! Lucy?" I spun around. She had to be here. I was right there, pushing her out of the way. She had to be safe. She had to be. "Where's Lucy?" I asked, finally settling my sights on the man. "Is she okay? Where's Lucy?"

What I thought could be concern mixed with clear confusion. "Who are you talking about? Who's Lucy?"

"_My sister_! Lucy is my sister! She's just a little girl!" I was at the point of yelling now and my heart was pounding in my chest. Black spots were starting to appear in my vision, but I ignored them. "She's Lucy! She's my sister, and she was going to get hit by a car and I saved her and I need to know that she's okay. Where is she?"

Breathing was starting to become harder and harder. Bracing myself against the thing I'd used to pull myself up, I tried to focus on taking deep breaths. It was then that I realized I knew this man. This man with the messy brown hair and brown eyes, wearing the brown pinstripe suit and the tan trench coat looking thing… I knew him. "You're David Tennant?" I knew who he was, but it came out as more of a question than a statement. Maybe because I was wondering what the hell David Tennant was doing in front of me. Then I decided to take a look around and my jaw nearly fell off my face. I was standing in the TARDIS, in that godforsaken spaceship that Doctor Who—though Callie would have killed me right there for saying Doctor Who instead of The Doctor—travels around with on the show. The console, with all its odds and ends and its giant tube in the center, stood next to me. I was leaning on the console. All around me were those odd, coral-shaped pole things that Callie said marked the 10th Doctor's TARDIS, whatever that meant. "Why am I in the TARDIS and why is David Tennant standing in front of me?" I posed the question more to myself but apparently I had said it out loud, earning a very strange look from the celebrity.

"How do you know about my TARDIS?" he asked, his voice all low and dangerous sounding.

"No need to get all snippy, Doc," I snorted. The black dots in my vision were starting to multiply and I felt strangely lightheaded. I briefly wondered how I was able to remain so snarky in my half-dazed state. "Obviously this is all a dream. I'm gonna go back to sleep now and when I wake up, this will all just be a dream. Because I can't be on this set, because this films in England and I live in America. So this is a dream. Yes, yep. I'm in dreamland. Guess it's better than the nightmare about the unicorns." The room began spinning around, reminding me of a Carousel. "Good night…"

And then everything went black.

~X~

~3rd Person~

The Doctor watched, a million questions running through his mind, as the girl's eyes fluttered shut and she collapsed, once more, on the grating of the TARDIS. She had obviously lost too much blood and he was surprised she'd even managed to stay standing for that long. Taking the few short steps to her, he bent down and picked her up in his arms. Then he turned around and started the journey to the sickbay. "Can't leave you laying on the floor bleeding and can't very well put you outside to die," he said to himself as the TARDIS rearranged the hallways to make the trip shorter for both him and the girl. Besides the obvious points he had just stated, he was also curious as to how she had even gotten into his TARDIS in the first place, so it was paramount that she survived her injuries for him to find out.

Inside the sickbay, he set her down on the bed. Pulling his sonic screwdriver out again, he took his time to scan her more thoroughly than he'd had time for before. After a moment, he had his answers. The results said she was human, which made him wonder about her all the more, but she was suffering from several cracked ribs, about a dozen lacerations, a large amount of deep bruising, and a concussion.

"What happened to you?" he wondered, looking at her small face, which was calm now that she was unconscious.

The scan said she was human, and she certainly looked it. She was a tiny girl, in both height and build. When she was standing, he seemed to have a few heads on her and, while he wasn't able to weigh her at the moment, she was quite a bit thinner than Rose. Her skin was paler than most humans he had seen, sort of an ivory color, and freckles covered her face. When her eyes had been open, he'd noticed they were a kind of honey color, significantly lighter than brown eyes with a tint of gold to them. It wasn't a color that was normally found in human eyes, but it didn't necessarily mean she was abnormal. Her hair was certainly abnormal, however. But he had learned throughout his years of traveling with humans that they often liked to alter their appearance and a lot of times that meant changing their hair color. Her hair was long, enough that it was falling over the side of the bed at the moment, and a mess. It was also two different colors, and those colors had been split into two layers. The top layer was a jet black color, while the bottom was a bright cherry red.

On top of her semi-strange appearance, she had said she was from America and her accent backed that claim up. So what was she doing in London, in his TARDIS nevertheless? Unfortunately, he couldn't very well ask her since she was unconscious. And, since he didn't want her to die, he would have to wait until she healed to ask her.

At this point, he knew he was running a bit late for Christmas dinner with Rose. The TARDIS, though she was curious as to where the girl came from, didn't seem to have anything against the girl. So the Doctor didn't have any issues in leaving the strange girl in the sickbay so he could go up to meet Rose and the others. He would only be gone a short while, after all, and this girl would be unconscious and in stasis for quite a while so she wouldn't wake up until long after he returned. With that decided, he set to getting her patched up so he could go have dinner.

~X~

~1st Person/Delphine~

I don't know how long I was asleep when I started to wake, but bright lights greeted my blurry vision when my eyes started to open. I didn't move for a few minutes, letting my vision clear so I could see my surroundings. I hurt all over and everything throbbed. And I meant _everything_.

Looking around, I found I wasn't really sure where I was. All the walls were white and all around the room was equipment that I didn't recognize. I was laying on some kind of cot or bed, or maybe they're the same thing, but I had no idea where I was.

I was probably in some stupid, strange hospital. I had never actually been in one. Negligent foster parents didn't exactly care about getting their wards getting proper. The only hospitals I had ever seen were the fictional kind on TV and I didn't exactly watch those shows. I had a policy against shows with real people and, either way, those hospitals probably, most likely, weren't anything like a real hospital. So, for all I knew, this could be a perfectly legitimate hospital. Which makes sense because I was mowed down by a car, by some asshole who was too busy playing with his phone to notice the little girl standing in the crosswalk. Naturally, a hospital is where I would be.

That's when I noticed that I had some weird patch looking things on me. They were blue and looked like giant square patches, like giant Band-Aids sort of. I had a couple on my arms and legs and I could feel one going around my torso, from the area right below my bust to the bottom of my waist. As I moved my head around, I could feel a couple on my face as well. What the hell? Were these some weird, modernistic bandages? Bizarre.

Where was everyone, though? Even without having been to a hospital in the last 16 years of my entire life, I still had the common sense to know that there should be nurses and doctors running around. Someone should have realized I was awake and come to check on me. Right?

That was it. Time to get up. Slowly, I swung my legs over the side of the cot and set them on the floor. I was still wearing my boots so at least I didn't have to deal with the floor, which I'm assuming was cold because they always seemed to be in novels and on TV. I stood, a little wobbly at first as pain radiated through my body. It didn't seem to be as bad as I would have thought, considering I'd been hit by a car, but maybe my injuries just hadn't been that severe. Maybe the guy had slammed on his brakes and didn't hit me as hard as I thought.

Chances were that Lucy was at the hospital, too. Even though I should have kept her from getting hit by the car at all, they still would have wanted to check her out, probably. She would likely have some scrapes from getting pushed. So first thing on the agenda was to find Lucy and make sure she was alright. "Lucy?" I called out, waiting for someone to hear me and come in to explain what was going on.

Nothing happened. No one came. I called again, but still nothing. "Hello? Is anyone there?" I tried a little louder and waited again. Was there no one here? Was I even in a hospital?

I noticed a mirror on the wall next to the door out of the room. I walked over to it, wanting to assess myself before I went searching. My skin looked a little paler than usual, making my freckles and my eyes stick out more. My hair was an absolute disaster, all knotted and messed up all over the place. My fringed bangs were severely less than desirable and they left my forehead hanging out for everyone to see. I didn't really like my forehead because it was one of the more acne prone places on my face, so I quickly tried to straighten my bangs out a bit. Of course, with my luck, they refused to cooperate. Whatever. I was just relieved to find that my glove was still on. I had a strange birthmark on the back of my right hand, so I always wore a single black glove to cover it up. I couldn't really explain why I didn't like it, other than people used to ask me about it all the time and I got tired of answering them. Now when people asked me why I wore a glove it was just easier to tell them to shove off instead of having to answer a bunch of questions on a birthmark. But I didn't like being without my glove. Though I thought it was strange that the hospital people hadn't taken it off, or that they hadn't changed me out of my street clothes into a hospital gown. Whatever the case, I had to find Lucy.

I pulled the door open and stepped out into the hallway. It was not the hallway of a hospital. There were no people, no doctors or nurses. The hallway was completely empty. It also wasn't white or brightly lit or anything that I thought a hospital hallway should have looked like. It was shaped like a hexagon and a dark grey color. Strangely, the hallway looked familiar to me, but I had no idea why. It stretched to both my left and right, without leading to a definitive end. I could have easily gone right, but something was telling me to go left. So I did. I just hoped I didn't get lost. I didn't have time to get lost. I had to find Callie and Lucy. I couldn't be sure of how long I was unconscious and no way of knowing what kind of trouble those two might be in because I wasn't there. And they needed me.

I walked, and kept walking. It felt like forever that the stupid hallway stretched on. Every time I made it to a corner and though maybe I would find an end, there was more hallway to wander down. I was probably being overdramatic in my sore and somewhat tired state, but it felt like I was walking for hours. "Fucking hell!" I finally yelled at the walls. "When will this hallway end? I'm going to die before I find the exit!"

I don't know if the hallway magically heard me but, when I made to the next corner, I found a tiny bit more of floor to walk on and then an archway, leading into a larger room. I stepped through the arch and my stomach dropped. Hell, everything dropped. "This can't be happening."

I remember earlier when I had first woken up, I had found myself in what looked like the main room of the TARDIS from that Doctor Who show. I had thought it was just a really strange dream in my hit-by-a-car stupor. But, unless I was secretly unconscious right now, that wasn't a dream. And neither was this. I was back in that room. "Fuck."

That David Tennant man was standing at the giant console thing in the center of the room. He must have heard me curse because he looked up after a few seconds of my standing there, gaping. "Hello there. You shouldn't be awake yet. How did you come out of stasis so fast?"

Stasis? What? "Okay, what in the fresh fucking hell is going on here?"

He seemed taken aback by my colorful language, but the look on his face told me he was wary of me. "Do you know who I am and where you are?"

I stepped further out into the room, but kept my distance a bit from him. "What kind of question is that? 90-freaking-percent of the world know who you are. You're David Tennant. And this is the TARDIS." Did he hit his head or something? Because I was not up for dealing with memory loss right now. "And since you're David Tennant, standing in the TARDIS, that means I'm either on the set of the show or I'm in a really weirdly accurate, as far as I know, Doctor Who reenactment. Which is a little bizarre if you ask me. Must be like Civil War reenactments, except for sci-fi nerds."

His eyebrows furrowed in a look of confusion and he took a step towards me. Naturally, I stepped to the side and away from him. "What are you talking about? Who's David Tennant? My name is the Doctor."

"Oh, right! I'm sure you use that on all the fangirls! Get it through your thick head, Doctor man, I'm not a fan." He still didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. How was that possible? "Very funny, messing with an injured girl. Like you wouldn't know who David Tennant is since, you know, you're him. Or, at the very least, a David Tennant impersonator. I prefer Elvis. Though you do like a lot like him so good job there."

"I look like Elvis?"

"No, you idiot. David Tennant!" I couldn't take this anymore. "I'm wasting time now. I have to go find Callie and Lucy. And I've had enough of your nonsense, so I'm gonna leave now." Before he could say anything else, I ran to the double doors of the fake TARDIS and threw them open.

As I stepped outside of the doors, I bumped into a blonde girl. My first thoughts were Callie, because she was blonde, but as I looked at the girl in front of me, I groaned. "Billie Piper?" This wasn't freaking possible. "Damn. You guys are either really good at cosplay or everyone in the cast has a twin." So David Tennant was the 10th doctor and the only time he traveled with Billie Piper, AKA Rose Tyler, was… "So you're reenacting season 2? Not my favorite. Not that I have a favorite." Behind her, I saw Rose's mother, Jackie, and the other random guy who was in the first two seasons. I think his name was Rickey? No, no… Mickey, like Mickey Mouse. Only not so much a mouse. "Sorry. I don't remember your real names. I have to go, though."

The David Tennant cosplayer guy rushed out of the fake TARDIS right behind me, so I took a quick few steps away from him. What? He was weird. "Doctor, who is she?" Billie Piper asked him. Man, they were really into this reenactment thing.

"I'm not sure, Rose," he told her, sounding exasperated. "She just appeared in the TARDIS. She keeps calling me David Tennant."

"Are you all seriously British?" I wondered out loud suddenly as I looked around now that I was outside. I saw Big Ben not too far off, which gave me shivers. "Because this looks like real, live Britain or England or whatever. And the last time I checked I was in fucking New York. So how the hell did I get here?" I heard them saying more stuff about "she" and "her" and I snorted. "I have a name, you know. It's Delphine."

Everything was getting just a little too ridiculous for me and I turned to leave, having had enough of this nonsense. I took one last glance at the fake blue box and started walking. I had only taken a few steps when I stopped, and looked back at it. _No, no, no, no, no, this can't be real_.

The box was about as big as I was. But I had just walked out of that box, out of the massive console room of the TARDIS. I know I had just left that box.

Quickly, I stepped around the box, looking at it from all sides. It was a box, just a simple blue box. I didn't miss the half smirk on David Tennant's face as I rounded the front side of the box, staring at it with wide eyes. The door was still open so I sprinted back inside of it and screamed.

It was freaking bigger on the inside.

I heard the doors close behind me and turned to see David Tennant and Billie Piper had come in. Or maybe they weren't them. Could they actually be… "No. No, you can't be them."

He walked up to me until he was only standing about a foot away from me. "Can't be who?"

"This can't be a reenactment if it's bigger on the inside. That doesn't exist in real life." I was beginning to hyperventilate, but a single thought sent a wave of calm through me. "This has to be a dream. I'm dreaming. That's the only explanation. Because you're on a television show and television shows about Time Lords traveling through time and space in a big blue TARDIS aren't real."

I felt a little woozy all of a sudden and the room spun in my eyes for a brief second. I gripped the console next to me for balance. David Tennant or the Doctor or whoever he is noticed my wavering and placed a hand on my arm. "We should get you back to the sickbay, Delphine."

"Don't touch me!" I snarled and pulled my arm away. I didn't like people I didn't know touching me. Callie and Lucy were the only ones I really allowed to. "I don't like being touched, so don't. I don't know you. Or, technically, I guess I do because you're the Doctor but, still, I don't know you. You can't be real."

To my surprise, he actually stepped away, respecting my dislike. Rose, I suppose she was, went to stand by the Doctor, looking at me with apprehension and concern. "Real or not, he's right. You look terrible. Let us take you back to the sickbay."

The room was still spinning off and on so, reluctantly, I nodded my head. After all, this was only a dream. What harm could it do? I let them lead me in silence back to the hospital-looking sickbay room, where I climbed back onto the bed with my legs hanging off the side. He sat on one of those round spinning chairs and reached into the coat he was wearing and pulled out what I recognized as the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. I guess, if we were sticking with the idea that he was the Doctor, then it was his sonic screwdriver. He pressed some sort of button and it began to make a humming, buzzing kind of sound and the tip glowed blue. "What's with the patches?" I asked purely out of curiosity, as he waved the screwdriver over them.

He gave me a smile, probably to calm my nerves, but didn't pause in the process. "Oh, they're nothing special. They just exert nanogenes into the body to heal and seal any injuries. They usually don't take long to finish the job, but they have to work a bit harder with the amount of injuries you suffered. Don't worry. Another 24 hours or so and you'll be good as new!"

"In 24 hours, I hope to awake from this strange ass dream and be back in my own life."

Done scanning, he leaned back in his seat and looked at me like I was an experiment, a mystery to solve. I didn't particularly like it. He opened his mouth but Rose spoke up instead, though I'm sure he would have asked the same question. "Why do you keep saying you're dreaming? This is real life. Nobody asleep or dreaming around here. Have you gone mental?"

"No, Blondie, I haven't gone mental," I said, mimicking her English accent nastily. She was a bit ruder than she was on the show. "This has to be a dream because you people are fictional. You don't exist."

"Explain," the Doctor, or whatever, asked. Well, it was more of a command than a request, but I was willing to let that go since he didn't know me very well and wasn't aware of how much I _didn't_ take commands.

If this was only a dream, then nothing I said would make a difference. "Well, in real life and not this weird dream shit, you and flower-face here are characters in a TV show that my sister is in love with. It's called Doctor Who."

"Fantastic name!" He grinned, one of those big goofy, toothy grins that I recognized from the show. Callie always swooned whenever he did that. She would be so jealous of me right now. You know, if this wasn't a dream.

"Sure, whatever." I continued on. "Basically, it tells the story of your life. Callie told me once that the show started back in like the 1950's or 60's or 70's or some olden date like that. Sometime before I was born. And it's the longest running television show, which is really the only part of the show I found cool. And it shows pretty much most of your life from your original appearance, before you regenerated."

Rose turned to him when I said that, hands on her hips and looking annoyed. "And just how many times have you regenerated, Doctor?"

"This is number ten," he answered with a shrug.

"And you couldn't have warned me about it _before_ you went and changed your face?" she practically yelled. I guess that hadn't gotten to that conversation yet. Oh well. Turning back to me, she sighed. "Men. How did you wind up here anyway, Delphine?"

So I told them the story. "Lucy, she's my sister. Well, not really sister, but she's my sister. She was gonna get hit by a car because I wouldn't take her for a walk with us, but I was right there so I pushed her out of the way. Guess I got hit instead. It wouldn't have happened if I had just taken her with us…"

"You sacrificed yourself to save your younger sister? That's very noble of you." I didn't know either of them very well so their facial expressions were still unfamiliar to me but they both looked sort of impressed that I would jump in front of a car to save my sister.

Rose had pulled up another chair by this point and was looking at me intently. She seemed to have forgotten or at least let go of our little snarky fight before and just seemed curious now. "If it's true about what you're saying about having seen this on the telly, how much of our future have you seen?"

My head was starting to hurt again and I laid back on the bed, refusing to sit up any longer. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, hoping that would make the headache leave. "There's seven seasons, and I've seen most of the episodes once. Judging by what I've seen, this should be season two but I'm not sure. I don't know a lot of specifics. Callie was the one who was into the show. I didn't really care for it."

"You don't really care for a show that's about my life? How is that possible?" the Doctor seemed offended that I didn't like his television show. Apparently I was supposed to feed his ego now, too.

"Oh, I'm sorry that your show is over-fucking-complicated with all your technical jargon and made up shit," I snorted, remembering all of the times I had to have Callie explain what the hell this brainiac was talking about because he used too many words that a normal person wouldn't understand. "Besides, I try not to watch shows with real people because real people suck. Give me anime any day."

The pounding headache wouldn't leave me alone. Frustrated with it and with the entire situation, I pressed my fingers to my temples and rubbed. When would this dream end?

My eyes were still closed but I could hear the Doctor standing up, and Rose after him. "Why don't we leave you to get some rest, Delphine? I can come check in on you in a while and we can talk more about this."

That wasn't going to happen. "I don't really do the whole sleep thing, Doc. Besides, I don't really feel like sleeping. I'm just gonna wait for this dream to end. Turn off the light on your way out, though. I think the lights are hurting my head." I was content to relaxing and letting these stupid patch things do their work, because I hurt.

"See you in a bit." I heard him click the lights off and close the door behind them.

Now, wake up, Delphine.

~X~

~3rd Person~

Rose grasped the Doctor's hand in hers as the two of them walked in silence back to the console room. Neither of them wanted to risk the strange new girl overhearing them if they said anything too close to the sickbay. So they waited until they reached the console to begin discussing the issue at hand.

"Do you believe her?" Rose asked tentatively, speaking up first. The idea of being a character in a television show was hard to grasp. "I hope the telly didn't add to many pounds. Though you could certainly use a few extra."

The Doctor's face was stoic. "No, Rose. The chances of a parallel dimension existing where my life has been made into a TV show are slim as it is, but for her to come from that exact dimension and get shifted into this one… It's basically impossible. More likely, it's a coping mechanism. Her parallel dimension probably doesn't have many strange or supernatural things going on, or at least none that she was aware of, so for her to suddenly find herself in a very strange and somewhat supernatural place is a shock to her system, especially considering the trauma she went through before winding up here." His look turned grim as he thought of the car accident she described. "I don't think she survived it, Rose, the car accident. I think she was set to die but, for some unknown reason, the universe felt she was important enough to save from death."

"You're saying she died in her own dimension?"

"Unfortunately, it looks like the case. But, whatever the case, she's going to have to stay on board with us." Rose looked like she was about to argue, so he continued before she could. "She was important enough for the universe to save her and then shift her to this dimension. There are a billion parallel dimensions out there, so why this one? And what makes her so special that the universe would save her in the first place? That doesn't happen to just regular people. She's special, and that could make her either very dangerous or very vulnerable. I need to find out what happened and why."

Rose nodded in understanding. She wasn't fond of the idea of a girl they didn't know hanging around her and her Doctor, but she also knew the Doctor had made up his mind and there was no changing that. "So that means she'll be coming with us on adventures then, yeah?"

"Yep," he answered, popping the P at the end. "I don't know her to be able to trust her alone on the TARDIS and I won't risk the old girl. We don't know her at all. The TARDIS doesn't seem to have anything against Delphine, but I won't risk it. Besides, the best way to figure out someone is to see how they act and do things. And what better way than to bring her with us?" He squeezed Rose's hand, then let go. "Why don't you go get some rest? You've had a long Christmas. And we can't leave until Delphine heals up a bit so we have some time to kill."

"Alright. Good night." With that, Rose left him and bounded up into the hallways of the TARDIS to return to her room.

"Good night." Now that Rose had gone, he tuned his monitor on the console in to watch the sickbay, where Delphine was laying, awake, and staring at the ceiling. _Just who are you?_

* * *

So the Doctor doesn't believe her! Well, did anyone expect him to? Probably not. I'll be starting New Earth not in the chapter 3 but in chapter 4, so that's coming soon. Anyway, don't forget to review!


	3. 3: If You Say So

Wow, three chapters in one week. I've never done that before, so yay me! I'll keep this short. This will be the last chapter that gets posted until after Thursday. Thursday is my last final, and the day my last paper of the semester is due, but after that I'm home free! Yay! But until then I've got a million things to do so while I'll be working on planning out the next chapter, I won't be able to write it and get it posted until after Thursday. Which is why I worked so hard to get these chapters up, so you could get a taste for what the story is like before I have to vanish for a few days. Thanks to everyone for reviewing! Reviews make me happy, and keep me inspired to write! So keep reviewing!

**TimeLadyHope**: Thanks for the review! My first two reviews! As for your question on her birthmark, I can't tell you exactly what kind of birthmark it is but I will tell you that it is not NOT absolutely not Gallifreyan. This is not a Time Lady story. She's unique, I'll give you that, but I can't tell you anymore than that. I was a little iffy on giving that out, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not a Time Lady story so that anyone who's reading who wanted it to be one, or didn't want it to be one, will know for sure.

**RandomGallifreyan**: I know what you mean about being impatient for chapters! And I respect that. As I mentioned above, I won't be able to get chapter 4 up until after Thursday, but once the semester is over and I have a life again, I'm going to strive for at least one chapter a week. It's entirely possible I'll get two or three out a week (because this is my only fic I'm working on right now and I don't really have a life, besides fanfiction and video games and my fiancé) but I will definitely put out at least one chapter a week once the semester ends on Thursday. But be patient with me until then! And thank you for reviewing. You're a star!

Chapter 3

If You Say So

~1st Person/Delphine~

I had no sense of time in this weird dream or whatever I was in. So when the Doctor told me it had been roughly 12 hours since he'd last checked on me, I was surprised. I must have been exhausted, which made sense because I was hit by a car, because I think I slept for at least a portion of those 12 hours. I never really slept so being able to was refreshing.

It did pose the question, however, of why was I still dreaming if I had fallen asleep? Generally when you fall asleep in a dream, you either wake up or you shift scenery and start doing something else. I wasn't back in reality and I wasn't anywhere else. Since this was a dream, I found that weird.

I watched the Doctor as he pulled his sonic screwdriver out again and began scanning the blue patches I had over my injuries. "Just checking to see how you're healing," he explained, though I hadn't asked. _He's kind of cute_. The thought came randomly from the back of my mind and I almost snorted. I didn't like real people and I definitely did not think he was cute. Even if his big, toothy grin was kind of amusing.

Shut up, Del. I didn't know him. For all I knew, he was nothing like his character on the show. He could be the complete opposite. I had no way of knowing what he was like, so I couldn't trust him. And if I couldn't trust him, then he wasn't allowed to look attractive to my subconscious mind.

"Tell me about yourself, Delphine," he said, flashing me a smile.

Callie would be all over him right now if she were here. She should be having this dream, not me. "Why?" I wasn't keen on sharing.

He seemed surprised by my answer. I took it that not a lot of the people that traveled with him—companions, I think Callie called them—were so reluctant to talk to him. "Why? Because I want to know more about you and who you are."

"In other words, you want to know how in the hell I got on your TARDIS," I was a little short with him. This dream was taking way too long to end and I just wanted to wake up in my own reality. "Because you think that if something is bizarre about me or out of place, it will make sense and give you a reason why I'm here and then you can stop freaking out about it."

He stopped scanning me and leaned back, looking me in the eyes incredulously. "I am _not_ freaking out. I'm just curious how an average human managed to appear on my ship. But precisely. You're clever, for a human." I really wanted to snap something witty at him but I thought better of it. He had helped fix me up, even if this was a dream and I didn't know him from Adam. "How old are you, Delphine?"

Instead of being a jerk, I decided to at least try and answer his questions. Maybe if I played along this dream would end. "16."

"Ah, so a minor, then. Your family must miss you."

I almost told him that I didn't have a family to miss me, but I stopped myself. I didn't feel quite comfortable telling this stranger about my life just yet. Instead, I just looked away. "I need to get back to my sisters." I felt like he was going to ask me more about it, so I sighed. "Listen, Doc, I don't mind answering basic questions like age, but I don't know you well enough to tell you personal stuff about me."

"Okay, I respect that." I was partially surprised at his response and he must have seen it on my face. "No matter how strange your predicament and how much I want to figure it out, I understand that you've only just met me and everything must seem bizarre to you. If you need time, okay." Well, maybe he wasn't so terrible, after all. I still didn't trust him. He put his arm on the end of the bed and leaned against it, a smile on his face but his eyes serious. Sitting in front of him like this, his chocolate brown eyes looked much older than he did. "Can you tell me again what happened to you?"

Again? I was beginning to sound like a broken record. "I told you before, I got hit by a car and then I woke up here."

"And nothing happened between that?"

I started to say no, but then I remembered. "There was a… Like a floating, sort of. I don't really remember it or know what was going on, but I remember I was floating and I couldn't see, but I didn't hurt." It was only partially a lie. I remembered hearing a voice but, for some reason, I didn't want to mention that.

He didn't seem to notice my omission, but his face turned grim. "This might be hard to hear, Delphine, but I'm going to tell you what I think happened. I think that you died, or were going to die."

Died? "Well, that's not possible. I'm right here. I'm not dead."

He put his hand on top of mine, which I immediately pulled away from. He grimaced, seeming to remember my thing about not being touched. "Sorry. And you're right. It is impossible, and you are right here. Obviously, you're not dead, sitting there and looking at me like I'm insane. Which I am, just a little bit." I have to admit, I did smile a little bit. I couldn't help it. His goofiness was contagious.

_Don't get attached. It will only hurt in the end._ Right. That was my rule.

"That's the point, though. You're here, instead of where you came from. And I know that you came from another dimension because you're covered in Void Stuff." I must have looked confused because he paused in his explanation of me. "Void Stuff are particles that you get covered in from traveling through the barriers between dimensions."

I guess that made sense. "So this Void Stuff is like being covered in a permanent spider web?"

"In a simplified form, yes." He seemed impressed by me, which was a weird feeling. Adults had never been impressed with me or by me before. Callie and Lucy were easily impressed, but it was another thing to impress an adult. "But that's the part that stumps me. _Why_ are you here? Everything I can tell says you probably were going to die there, from your account of what happened to the injuries you sustained. For some reason, the universe decided it wasn't your time to die."

"Can it do that? Just decide that I'm going to live?"

"The universe can do whatever it wants. It's the universe. Who are you to tell the universe no?" he said matter-of-factly, as if everyone was supposed to know that. "Usually, though, the universe leaves things alone. There isn't much out there than causes the universe to react and take action, but it felt you were important enough to save your life. But why?"

I shrugged, a little weirded out by that information. "Don't ask me. I'm just your average teenaged girl. I've never done anything important in my life. I don't even like your show."

"Don't say that, Delphine. Everyone is important, even if they don't realize it." I rolled my eyes a little bit at that but, again, that weird feeling came back. I wasn't someone that people told that to. "Tell me more about this show."

"I don't know what else you want me to tell you. It's a show about your life and your travels and everything." I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he wanted me to tell him about his life. I had said that I'd seen all 7 seasons. Was that what he wanted? "Callie was in love with the show, and she made me watch the new episodes with her. And I may not have liked the show, but I retained enough of it to know how dangerous knowledge of the future can be. It can disrupt the timeline or something like that. So don't think I'm gonna tell you jack about your future."

The Doctor put his hands up in mock surrender. "You're right, you're absolutely right. You can't tell me about the future. But you could tell me about the past. I can't go back and change things I've already done, so that's safe to talk about. I just want to see exactly how much knowledge you have of my life."

I thought about it, trying to decide if I should tell him or not. I knew that future knowledge could backfire but I didn't know much more than that. But it made sense. Things he had already done were set and I didn't think he could go back and change that. So it should be fine to tell him about things he had done. "Like I said, I've only seen the episodes once so I don't know a lot of what happens. But I vaguely remember some of the more interesting episodes. There was that episode where Rose dressed like an old Victorian lady and there were those ghost things that were evil and they got sucked into the gas from the lights. I think Charles Dickens was there… Oh and there was the episode with all the fat people who basically ate the important people and then wore them like a skin and everyone was really gassy. There was also the episode where everything was a game and one of you was part of a Weakest Link type game. And, if I'm correct, you've just changed from the guy with the big ears into, well, you."

I could tell right away that he was skeptical about me. And that pissed me off. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I snapped, causing his eyes to widen. "You don't believe me. Everything I just said is accurate. What do you think, that I've been stalking you? You egotistical ass. I don't belong here. I can't tell you what happens in your future because it could screw everything up, which you agreed on, but apparently telling you about your stupid past with your stupid big ears isn't convincing enough? Whatever. I don't care. I don't know you and I never liked your stupid ass show and all I want to do is go home to Callie and Lucy because they need me. Because they're stuck with Maggie and she's terrible!"

I took a deep breath once I finished ranting. I hadn't meant to say all of that but the entire situation was so frustrating I couldn't help it. Holy hell, this dream was frustrating me. Even more infuriatingly, he didn't say anything about my outburst but, "Who's Maggie?"

Yeah, like I was going to tell this jerk anything about my life. "She's a bitch, and that's all there is to it." And I refused to say anything else. He was just a guy who probably didn't care anyway, and I wasn't in the mood to share.

He watched me for a moment longer but I was finding it difficult to read his face. Usually I was good at reading people and telling when they were lying, but I couldn't do it with him. Which was only adding to my frustration with everything.

He must have realized that was as far as he was gonna get with me, because he stood up from the bed and put his hands in his pockets. "Delphine, I know you're not happy to be here. I don't think anyone would be in your predicament. But, whether you like it or not, you're going to have to stay with Rose and me. The universe moved you for a reason and we need to figure out what that reason is, because you could be a danger and not even know it or something else. But you can't stay on the TARDIS by yourself because, frankly, I don't know you well enough to leave you alone. So you'll have to come with us when we leave the TARDIS."

"Bullshit." I crossed my arms and frowned. This was crap. There was no way in hell I was going anywhere with him. "Even if this is a dream or fake or whatever, I've seen what happens on your show. People die all the time and I refuse to be another casualty of your adventures."

"I'll protect you-"

"You mean like you protect-" I was about to say Rose, but then I remembered that he hadn't lost her yet. I knew at the end of the season, she would be gone but she was still here right now. And I couldn't tell him that he lost her. "Like you protect everyone else? All those people who die, even after you say that you'll save them? Will you protect me like you protected them? What about that girl in the ghost and gas episode? I remember her! I remember how you promised to keep her safe and I remember how Rose fought you to let her be, but she died! Tell me, Doctor, will I be another meaningless death or will I actually be safe, and at what cost?" I was standing up now, staring him down, daring him to say something.

"Either you go with us, or I'll have to lock you inside a room in the TARDIS. I don't know you well enough to trust you alone with my ship." The look in his eyes was dead serious and I faltered, only slightly.

Typical. He wouldn't respond to my questions, but he would threaten to lock me up. Was this the same man that Callie fawned over all the time?

"Fine. I'll go. But don't expect me to be all smiles and flowers." I didn't want to go. I just didn't want to get locked up on a strange fictional spaceship by myself.

Smiling, he seemed pleased. Never mind the fact that he basically just told me I had no choice but to go on dumbass dangerous adventures with them. "Fantastic. Once you're ready, we can go on our first trip together."

Running a hand through my hair, which felt more than a little nasty, I raised my eyebrows. "What do you mean ready? I'm freaking ready now."

"You can't go out looking like that, now can you?" I looked down at myself and instantly frowned. Huh. I looked atrocious. The clothes I had been wearing when I wound up here were all torn and bloody from my injuries still. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I couldn't go out like this. Not that I cared what other people thought of what I looked like, but it was a matter of self-respect. "I can have Rose show you to the wardrobe room so you can pick out something new to wear."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." He turned to open the door but I quickly poked him in the leg with my foot to stop him. "Am I good to go? I'm not going to start gushing blood while we're running, am I?"

"How do you know we're going to be running?"

I gave him a look that told him I clearly knew what our adventures would entail. "Really, Doctor, I've seen the show. You're _always_ running."

"Good point." He waved his sonic screwdriver around a bit before placing it back in his pocket. "Scan says you're healing up just fine. You need to keep the one around your ribs just to make sure there's no residual damage to them, but you can pull the rest of them off if you want."

I nodded, happy that I wouldn't have to go out with blue stripes all over my face and arms, and follow him out the door. In silence, because I was annoyed with him beyond compare, I let him lead me back to the console room because I wasn't sure I could find my way back there myself. Part of my mind was still convinced that I was just dreaming, but the other part was starting to think… What if it wasn't? What if by some weird, stupid mishap I had actually landed in a world or dimension or whatever it was called where Doctor Who was real life, where Callie and Lucy didn't exist or didn't know me. No, that wasn't possible. I couldn't think that.

Rose was waiting for us in the console room and she flashed me a smile when she saw me. We had been kind of at odds before in the sickbay, but she didn't seem to harbor any hard feelings. "Rose, would you help Delphine find the wardrobe?"

"Yeah, absolutely." I noticed her eyes lingering on the Doctor as she walked up to me at the door. Right, she was in love with the Doctor. I had forgotten about that. "How are you feeling?" she asked me as she started leading the way.

"Sore, but okay. Better than I felt before, which is something at least."

She asked me a few more questions as she walked to the wardrobe room, which was past a number of turns and through a few doors, like how old I was and where I had lived before coming here. "Do I look okay, on the telly? They say the camera adds ten pounds, but I'd rather it took them off."

She was refreshing, to say the least. She was down-to-Earth and I could tell right off the bat that she seemed to like me a little bit, which was more than I could say for the Doctor. Her questions weren't all complicated and laced with suspicions and the need to pry into who I was. They seemed to be genuine questions, to find out what kind of person I was and, some what, to find out what she was like where I came from. I'm sure the Doctor had put it in her head that I couldn't possibly be from a parallel world where they lived in a television show, but Rose seemed to believe some of it. At least, that's what I could gather from her at the moment. "You looked great. Callie always said you were her favorite character. She loved how rebellious and strong-headed you were. I guess I should say are now, right, since you're a physical person now? She loves how you're always just so 'Well, the Doctor said I should do this, but I'm gonna go and do that.' You're great on TV, Rose. Don't worry about it."

She let out a breath, like she was worried I was going to say she was terrible. Funny. She had always seemed so confident on the TV, but I suppose, on the inside, she was just a regular person like any other human, who worried about what they looked like and their reputation. "Here we are!" I almost bumped into her when she stopped while I was thinking. We were standing in front of a regular looking door, regular looking for the TARDIS anyway, and she grinned at me before shoving the door open and then promptly pushing me forward inside.

The wardrobe room was massive. It was at least four stories tall, with spiral staircases going up and racks upon racks of all types of clothing. It seemed to be organized by era and style. Before I could ask Rose if there was a simpler way of finding clothing, she told me, "Just think. Use your mind to ask the TARDIS for clothes that suit you. She's good like that."

So I tried it. _TARDIS, if you can hear me, I don't really feel like digging through all these clothes to find something to wear. I would owe you a million bucks if you could find something for me. Of course, I doubt you need a million bucks, but still_… And before I knew it, Rose was dragging me over to a rack of clothing that had changed. Thankfully, it was on our floor so I didn't have to trek up and down staircases.

The clothes on the rack were all in my style and I almost squealed with glee. I wasn't really a fan of shopping, because I usually couldn't find things I liked or I got dragged to girly stores with Callie because she liked girly clothes and I typically just wore whatever fit and was comfortable, but it was exciting to have clothes that would actually work for me. And, as another plus, they all seemed to be my size. Right away, I began picking through the selection.

"You said you had sisters, yeah? How old?" she suddenly asked me. I was taken a bit by surprise and I looked over to find her watching me, a small smile on her face. I couldn't detect any hidden meaning behind the question.

Deciding she probably was just curious about who I was, I decided to answer. "Callie is my age, 16, and Lucy is 7. They aren't really my sisters, not biologically, but they're family to me." I hadn't meant to say that last part, but it just sort of came out. Something about Rose made me feel calm and… comfortable. Callie and Lucy were the only ones who had ever made me feel that way, but Rose seemed to illicit it almost instantaneously. I had never really been a fan of the show, but I had seen it and, in a way, I felt like I knew Rose because I had seen her and who she was. I suppose that explained the feeling.

"You're lucky." She was standing by me now, instead of hesitantly standing a few feet away, and helping me look through the clothes. Occasionally she would pull something out and hold it up to me and we would both laugh. "I'm an only child. Grew up without any siblings. My dad died when I was real young, and Mum never remarried so it was always just me and her. Sometimes it would get a little lonely and I wished I had a brother or sister around. Mickey was there, and he helped, but it's not the same."

"My life is… complicated." As nice as it felt to talk to Rose and as comfortable with her as I felt, I still wasn't ready to divulge my life to her. "Things weren't always pleasant, but they made it easier. I wouldn't trade them for the world. But now they're… Well, they're not here. And I need to get back to them. I promised them I would never leave them alone, and that's exactly what I've done. They're all alone, and it's my fault."

Rose put a hand on my shoulder, comfortingly, and I hesitated before pulling away. "It's not your fault, Delphine. You were trying to save your sister. You couldn't have known she would be in the way of the car. You did the right thing, and they're both alive because of you. I'm sure the Doctor can find some way of setting you back in your own world."

"You think so?"

"I know so, Delphine."

I had just about finished picking out an outfit, when I turned to her and actually smiled. "Phi." She looked confused, so I elaborated. "You can call me Phi, if you want to. Callie always called me Phi and it's easier than saying Delphine all the time."

The smile on her face was breathtaking and wonderful all at the same time. She was honestly happy that I was okay with her enough to let her call me something else. "Phi, then. I like it." I turned back to finish choosing clothes, but stopped when she spoke again, "He's not so bad, you know. He can be a little rough around the edges when you first meet him, but he gets better."

I pulled a pair of shoes out of a shelving unit that seemed to be attached to the bottom of the rack, finishing the outfit I was picking out. All I could think about now was how, in roughly 10 or 12 episodes, Rose was going to disappear. I couldn't remember the episode exactly, but I distinctly remembered she got sucked into a parallel world or something like that. She survived, but the Doctor lost her. And I was going to lose her, and I knew about it. But I also knew that changing events would change a million other things. If Rose didn't disappear, the Doctor might never meet the companions he travels with after her, Martha and Donna I believed their names were. If he didn't meet them, so many things could get messed up. Ugh, I couldn't handle this. When would this dream end?

I would just have to figure out what I was going to do along the way. So, for now, I couldn't tell her she was going to be lost. But maybe I could just warn her… "Rose," I started, giving her my most serious look. "Just… Just be careful, okay? I know you care for him and you trust him with your life, and that's great, but just be careful. The people he travels with and the things he does… It's not always safe. And I like you, which is a big thing because I pretty much hate everyone who exists, so I don't want to see anything happen to you."

"It's a bit vague, Phi," she said, beaming at the use of my nickname, but nodding with what I said. I don't think she got what I was trying to say exactly, but at least she listened. "But I'll remember and try to be careful. You be careful, too."

Callie would be so proud of me for trying to make a difference. Wait, was that what I was doing? If, for whatever reason, I didn't wake out of this dream, would that be my goal? To make a difference? I didn't remember the episodes exactly, but maybe I could try and save some of the people who didn't make it. Yes, I would do that. And I would make Callie proud. Oh, I missed them, Callie and Lucy. I just wanted to see them again. But I had no idea of when that would be. So, until then, I would do my best to make them proud of me.

"I'll be careful."


End file.
